37 in LCD TV...buying guide requested.

square_wave, this is in response to your post.
Satisfied Panasonic plasma customer here. Bought the 42" PV60 (last year's model) and am very pleased with the picture quality. For watching DVDs (which is what I mostly do), the Panny plasma is unbeatable - except by Pioneer plasmas which are not available in India. LCDs are good no doubt for many applications and they consume less power. But for me, watching movies in a darkened home theatre room is a nearly daily affair and hence, low black level was very important to me. Therefore - plasma and therefore - Panasonic. There are numerous reviews/articles which substantiate the fact that good plasmas are capable of deeper blacks and that helps the DVD movie experience. I think the only LCD exception I've read is Sony's X-series LCDs which reviews say is as good as Pioneer/Panasonic plasmas. But of course, you will end up paying about 2x the price!

I guess the other mistake which most people make is thinking that by buying a higher resolution set (720 or 1080), they'll end up improving the picture quality of the material they watch. That is absolute nonsense since the PQ is only as good as the source material! DVDs are in 480p and any TV with a higher horizontal res will only upscale the image beyond that. And we know what happens when you upscale any image beyond its native resolution. That is why regular cable or even DTH looks worse on a higher res TV (whether LCD or plasma or DLP) than on a lower res TV (good old CRT). DVD is the highest res source available to us in India and hence, even a TV with an EDTV resolution (852x480) will suffice.
My $0.02!

Hi Raptor,
Good to hear that you are happy with the panny..
About resolution, If you play the PS3 or x-box 360 or if you have a hi-end upscaler like eh faroudja type, you can output higher resolution.
How much did you pay for the PV60 ?

Right, but I was mainly talking about DVDs. Also beware of buying a Panny plasma if you already have a Faroudja processor based DVD player. Apparently the two don't mix well together - macroblocking errors. Don't have any links right now but you can google for it. So that means Oppo, Denon players are out.

Best thing is to carry your DVDs or even player if possible to test. And better to go to a Panny brand shop rather than multi-brand electronics stores.

I paid 80K over a year ago.

Thanks for the tip raptor.
How about hitachi plasmas ? Any issues ?